Open Book Festival – A festival that caters to all

Wednesday 7 September marked the start of the 2016 Open Book Festival. This book festival, that ran from 7–11 September, is a huge event in Cape Town that welcomes all authors, academics, literalists, and book lovers to insightful and fun sessions on authors and their stories.

Cape Town was buzzing with the voices of book fans and authors treading through the streets and having intense discussions at coffee shops as they waited for their next session. Most of the discussions took place near Buitenkant Street in popular venues such as The Fugard Theatre and The Book Lounge.

I attended a very humorous discussion on Dark Comedy. Mark Winkler lead the dialogue with authors such as Paige Nick, Niq Mholongo, and Paul Crilley. Paige Nick was there to discuss her dark, yet funny novel about the lives of strippers, Dutch Courage. Mholongo discussed his collection of captivating short stories in Affluenza, whilst the Scottish Crilley discussed his very bizarre dark comedy novel, Poison City.

Winkler asked the panel about the humour that readers can find in their stories and where that humour comes from. Nick stated that she writes what is funny to her in the hopes that others will find it funny as well. Regarding Dutch Courage she said she wrote about the humour in the characters’ dark lives. She chose to set the story in the Netherlands where stripping is a legal profession, as opposed to her first choice New York where it is an illegal trade that people are forced into. Changing the setting of the story had a big impact on the mood of the novel. Regarding, Poison City, which Winkler stated is probably one of the maddest books he ever read, Crilley approached a very dark and serious story with a light touch. A story that would normally be viewed as dark is now humorous all the way through. The author says that he used dark humour as a response to serious issues. In the novel one will find many strange characters, one of which is the very popular alcoholic dog. Even the protagonist has some quirks and faults, which according to Crilley is an essential part to making him a likable and relatable character.

Mholongo doesn’t always consciously think about the humour in his stories. Sometimes he just writes, without regarding the humour in it, but then someone else reads it and finds it funny. Affluenza covers observations that he made within his community and a lot of the time it reveals the problems that he saw. Yet, it does not only reflect problems up North, but problems across the whole of South Africa and elsewhere. He said that the advantage of living in a South African township is that there are stories hidden in every pavement.

The Narrator and I, was a session of the authors, David Cornwell, Garth Greenwell, and Rawi Hage. The discussion was lead by Damon Galgut and he looked at how these authors found and developed the strong narrative voices in their novels. The panellists were asked whether they knew, with their first book, that they would be published and how it influenced their freedom to write. Hage, who provided us with very humorous comments and entertaining responses throughout the session, only stated that his love for books probably came from his father: His father was a great reader, and so he was exposed to books from a young age. Cornwell said that he always knew he wanted to become a writer and throughout his writing process he had publication in mind. Greenwell gave a very insightful answer, stating that to him writing is one the most intense forms of privacy. He never wanted an audience for his story and it was only near the end of his novel that he started thinking of publishing it. He believes that this gave him some freedom with his writing process, because of the fact that he kept it private for a long time. According to Greenwell writing is making an art of failure. When you write you are always making failures, and to reveal those failures to people isn’t always easy. So, because he never shared his work in the beginning he never had the fear of revealing his failures, which, he said, made it easier to write.

Another very stimulating discussion was the Interior Design session. Ed Shuter chaired the discussion with authors, Garth Greenwell, Yewande Omotoso, and Philip Their. Greenwell’s What Belongs to You, Omotoso’s The Woman Next Door, and Their’s The Winter War was used to discuss how domestic and other spaces reflected the interior lives of their characters. It was a shared idea with all four that the domestic space is more concerned with seeming, than being. The Finnish Their said that in his novel conflict comes to fore over the space and design of the kitchen. The wife wants to design the kitchen into a modern space, but the husband finds this design too clinical and blank. He believes a home should be comfortable and it should look “lived in.” So, in his novel space is about display and who you really are. Omotoso’s book is set in Cape Town. It is a city very hung up on appearances. She chose Cape Town, because it is a very complex city. It is complex, because it is this picture beautiful space, but at the same time it also has an ugly side to it. Then, there is Garth’s story that is set in Bulgaria. The story begins in a public bathroom as a kind of private space. This is an element that you will find throughout his story. There aren’t a lot of private or intimate spaces for the characters, so they have to carve out their own private space out of public spaces that will be able to accommodate intimacy. This session proved to reveal a lot about how space reflects the emotions, needs and situations of the characters.

I also attended the very unique and refreshing Afrikaaps & Hip Hop session at the Fugard Theatre. The panellists included of Blaq Pearl, Shaquile Southgate, B-Boy Mouse, and was lead by Adam Haupt. These rapper, poets and hip hop dancers provided a fresh look at the diversity within the language of Afrikaans and how Afrikaaps and Hip Hop could be a tool to empower the youth of South Africa. Haupt opened the session by stating how very politically meaningful it is for South Africa to have such a discussion within the space of the Open Book Festival. The panellists referred to themselves as Hip Hop activists. Through the programmes they run, such as Heal the Hood, they want to teach people to embrace multilingual personalities in schools and force South Africa to really think of what multilingualism means. Blaq Pearl said that she realised how people would change from Afrikaaps to English when they met each other in different spaces. She found this to be a worrisome situation, and made the decision to not change her dialect or language according to the space she enters. Afrikaaps is not something to be ashamed of and she wasn’t going to wait around until someone told her it is okay to speak it. “Hierdie is hoe ek praat en ek gaan nie wag vir jou om te sê dit is reg nie.”

Another wonderful session was with the amazing French children’s book author and illustrator, Benjamin Chaud. He presented a workshop to young learners on the art of drawing. Chaud has been an illustrator for 17 years and has illustrated over 70 books. However, he doesn’t just illustrate other people’s stories, he is also an author himself. He gave a short reading on two of his books. Chaud explained to the children that even though he has all these years of experience, he still never gets it right on the first go. For him to draw an image successfully he will draw it around 10 to 20 times, before he is satisfied. This fantastic illustrator also said to the children that a drawing is lines that we read. If he draws a mouse, it isn’t really a mouse; it is only lines on a paper. Yet, because people can read lines on paper, they see the mouse. According to him that is what drawing is about, not about how beautiful or how well drawn his stories are, but how understandable they are. He ended the session by guiding the learners in drawing their own stories. These are but a few of the thrilling events that Open Book Festival presented to the public. They catered to a wide audience, even children and aspiring writers, with diverse cultures, could benefit from these sessions. Open Book Festival 2016 has proved to be a huge success, and we can’t wait to see how they will top this one next year.